Assessing Impacts of Non-Motorized Recreation on Mountain Goats Using Non-Invasive Stress Hormone Sampling and Camera Traps

Assessing Impacts of Non-Motorized Recreation on Mountain Goats Using Non-Invasive Stress Hormone Sampling and Camera Traps

Approximately 50 camera traps will be deployed across a gradient of human use within Banff and Yoho National Parks. Cameras will be positioned both on and off-trail within suitable mountain goat habitat to assess if mountain goats avoid humans spatially or temporally as a strategy to cope with high visitation to these areas. Camera data will be used in conjunction with fecal stress hormone sampling to make more robust inferences about the behavioural and physiological impacts of non-motorized recreation on mountain goats within these Parks.